By Lynn Elber, Television Writer
PASADENA, Calif. (AP) --Oscars disarray over the exit of Kevin Hart as the host of the show had an upside — people paid attention, ABC's entertainment president said Tuesday.
"Ironically, I have found that the lack of clarity … has kept the Oscars really in the conversation, and the mystery has been really compelling," said Karey Burke, whose network is the ceremony's longtime home.
She called the interest proof that the Oscars are still relevant.
Burke's worries about the host-less Feb. 24 ceremony have vanished as it comes together with a "phenomenal" line-up of presenters, she told a TV critics meeting.
Tina Fey, Whoopi Goldberg, Daniel Craig, Jennifer Lopez, Chris Evans and Constance Wu are among them.
The ceremony also has box-office hits — best-picture contenders "Black Panther," ''Bohemian Rhapsody" and "A Star Is Born" — with fans that could boost TV viewership.
The 2018 show drew a record-low 26.5 million people, a 20 percent drop from the 2017 show and the first time Oscar viewership dipped below 30 million, according to Nielsen records that go back to 1974. The best-picture winner, "The Shape of Water," only grossed $57.4 million in the U.S.
Burke also lauded the movie academy's pledge to keep the ceremony to three hours, avoiding the overtime that can drain off viewers.
The host-less Oscars was a decision that everyone involved got on board with fairly quickly after Hart withdrew in December, said Burke, who's been in the top ABC entertainment job just two months.
Hart dropped out amid criticism over years-old homophobic tweets, for which he eventually apologized.
Harvey Weinstein hit with new sex crime charge in New York
Harvey Weinstein pleaded not guilty Wednesday to a new sex crime charge in New York, as he awaits retrial in his landmark #MeToo case.
Details of the new allegations were not immediately available. He was charged with committing a criminal sex act.
The jailed ex-movie mogul has long maintained that any sexual activity was consensual.
Prosecutors revealed last week that Weinstein had been indicted on additional sex crime charges that weren't part of the case that led to his now-overturned 2020 conviction. But the new indictment was sealed until his arraignment.
Prosecutors have said that the grand jury heard evidence of up to three alleged assaults — two in hotels in the Tribeca neighborhood and one at a lower Manhattan residential building. The purported incidents took place from the mid-2000s to 2016, prosecutors said.
But it's not clear whether any of those allegations underlie the new indictment.
While bracing for the new charges, Weinstein also is awaiting retrial after New York state's highest court this spring overturned his 2020 conviction on rape and sexual assault charges involving two women. The high court, called the Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Nov. 12.
The Court of Appeals ruled that the then-trial judge unfairly allowed testimony against him based on allegations that were not part of the case. That judge's term expired in 2022, and he is no longer on the bench.
Prosecutors have said they'll seek to fold the new charges into the retrial, but Weinstein's lawyers say it should be a separate case.
Weinstein, who also was convicted in 2022 in a Los Angeles rape case, remains behind bars while awaiting his New York retrial.
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